Geena Davis on Adding Women to the Picture: Put It In the Script

At the Women's Network Funding conference, actor and activist Geena Davis gave the women gathered there a powerful metaphor to add women back into the picture of society, and to take conscious action to do so. After watching videos with her two-year-old daughter and realizing that females were represented at a rate of one to every three male characters, and often highly sexualized and stereotyped, she started the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. : I have learned first-hand the power of research," she told the conference. "And the fact that research, data, facts, dispel myths and rumors.”

“The fact is that women are seriously under-represented across all sectors of society," she continued. "For the most part, we’re not aware of the full extent. About two years ago, the White House Project released a benchmark report where they looked at 10 sectors of society, like academia, business, law, politics, media, sports, etc., to find the percentage of women in positions of authority. And the average, across the board, of all these important sectors of society, was 18%. With just little variations. How is that possible? Across all sectors of society, everything is stalled out at about 18%? But that number, is all around us, if you look for it. For example, the number of women in congress is 16%. 17% of movie narrators are women, and that’s also the percentage of women in the animator’s guild. My body fat is 17%. It’s strange, how often that comes up.”

“So why did the percentage of women in leadership stagnate at about 17 or 18 percent? Here’s another figure, the percentage of women in crowd scenes, in movies, is 17%. So could it be, that, if all the media that we are consuming, the entertainment media, has this huge imbalance, couldn’t it be, that that looks normal to us. That we cease to see it, we don’t recognize it, it looks normal. So that when there’s one or two women on a board, we have a couple of tenured professors, we have a couple female law partners, they feel done. It’s normal to us. We’re not seeing images of women and men sharing the sandbox equally. We’re not walking into situations and saying, hey this body of people is not half women, it looks weird. It doesn’t look weird, because that isn’t what we’ve ever been exposed to.”

ADD WOMEN

This is the solution: Add women.

“Put it in the script,” Geena told us. Though it was a specific reference to the fact that quite often filmmakers aren’t aware of the status quo, and need to be told, in writing, how to set a scene. “A crowd gathers, 50 percent of whom are female.” Seems obvious, no? But it isn’t. “Put it in the script” can be a metaphor for all of us, whether we’re in media or education, agriculture or the arts. Remind people that women hold up Half the Sky, as Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn did with their book and subsequent multi-media movement by that title.

At Action Kivu, we're doing just that: sharing women's stories, bringing them out from behind the curtain of silence to share their visions for their communities. Training them in a marketable skill to start a business and provide for their children and families. The sewing workshops in Mumosho and Bukavu are graduating 60 women this month, who will stand out and add their voice to the unfolding story of the Congo. You can help "put it in the script;" we're still in need of funds to provide sewing machines for each of the graduates to start her own business!  Click here to learn more about what the $175 / sewing kit provides, and follow the link to donate. No donation is too small, and every dollar makes a difference.

“In medicine,” Geena said, “very often the cure comes from the same source as the disease, right? So the good news is, as powerful as media is, it can have a positive impact, it can actually create opportunities to overcome social and cultural barriers. For example, we know that if girls watch female characters in un-stereotyped activities, they are more likely to pursue non-traditional vocations. In other words, if they see it, they can be it.”

“The time for change is now. And the great thing is, that we have incredible agents of change, filling this room. All of us, all of us are powerful agents of change. And we embrace what Dr. Martin Luther King called the 'fierce urgency of now.' We cannot wait to see if real gender equality happens in the natural course of time because all the evidence shows us that it will not. The lives of too many girls are at stake, as the Nobel Prize winning economist Professor Amartya Sen tells us, at least two million girls die worldwide, every year, because of inequality and neglect. Girls are disappearing, not just as fictional characters, but in the cold light of day.”

“What we need, across all sectors of society, is to add women. Boys and girls need to see an abundance of female characters doing interesting and important things and in leadership positions in the media they consume. And we need more women behind the cameras. If there’s a woman producer, writer, director, the number of female characters on-screen goes up. We need more women in the realms of business, academia, law, the military. From the people reporting the news to the people making the news, we need to add women. And to the ranks of policy makers, corporate boards, justices, presidents and prime ministers, we need to add women, include women, encourage women, vote for women, and hire women.”

Read more of Geena Davis' speech at World Pulse.

Meet Amani Matabaro - Congo Community Leader. Footballer.

My friend Cate and I first met Amani Matabaro via e-mail, after our friend, Kevin Sites, recommended we connect with him to support his work with women and children in eastern Congo. Kevin had worked with Amani as a translator and fixer in eastern Congo in 2005, during one of the many times of conflict and war that have left Congo and its people traumatized. Kevin told us about Amani's gentle spirit with the stories of the women and his passion for peace and the rights of women and children.

Over the past two years working with Amani via Action Kivu, we've experienced just that in his work, the stories and photos he shares, and finally, in person on our visit to Congo in January 2012 and his visit to the U.S. in March. Now you can meet Amani, via this beautiful and powerful video introduction into his life and world, who is doing so much for peace and the rights of women and children in eastern Congo. Thanks to the Enough Project's Raise Hope for Congo for creating the series.

Action Kivu is 100% volunteer in the U.S.  Every dollar you donate goes directly to the work on the ground in Congo and is tax-deductible. Please consider a gift to the women today; the sewing workshops will graduate this month, and we need to provide sewing machines for the women to begin their own businesses. Visit http://actionkivu.org/ to learn more!

Why write?

[ Optima typewriter ], a photo by shexbeer on Flickr.

My day job in casting is ending in a month, and I've no idea what I'm doing next.

Which, if you know me, is not unusual, but as I edge closer to my 40th birthday, it becomes more clear that I want my doing to align with my being. Last night, my dear friend and housemate discussed my future. He sprawled on the futon, a hold-over from poor post-collegiate days, I sprawled on the couch opposite, a plate of cheese balanced on my stomach and a glass of red in hand.

I reiterated that I don't want to take another casting job (and now I'm publishing it!) - it's too easy to let a year pass without pursuing what I really want, and as much as I enjoy my current casting gig, NO other job is like it. Instead you have a small budget, an even smaller staff, with high expectations to cast unicorns (Ivy-league smart AND stripper-hot women who want to be on reality TV!) for an unknown, untested, unchartered show.

I want to write. To blog about life, about living in Los Angeles without a car, the community/communities you encounter when you engage with the city by sidewalk, bus, and train. To talk to people on the street, to record their stories and bring their lives into focus, to recognize neighbors across the multiple neighborhoods that make up LaLa Land. To, as Walt Whitman wrote in the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass "love the earth and the sun and the animals. Despise riches. Give alms to everyone that asks. Stand up for the stupid and crazy. Devote (my) income and labor to others, hate tyrants, have patience and indulgence toward the people ... (to) go freely with uneducated persons and the young, and with the mothers of families."

Anyone hiring for that?

"Why write? How justify this mad itch for scribbling? Speaking for myself, I write to entertain my friends and to exasperate our enemies. I write to record the truth of our time as best as I can see it. To investigate the comedy and tragedy of human relationships. To oppose, resist, and sabotage the contemporary drift toward a global technocratic police state, whatever its ideological coloration. I write to oppose injustice, to defy power, and to speak for the voiceless.

"I write to make a difference. 'It is always a writer's duty,' said Samuel Johnson, 'to make the world better.' I write to give pleasure and promote aesthetic bliss. To honor life and to praise the divine beauty of the natural world. I write for the joy and exultation of writing itself. To tell my story."

~Edward Abbey, from "A Writer's Credo"

Collection: Online Connections & Monks in the Sun

A lurker on design sites, I love when bloggers post about their personal collections: a set of stacked books and framed photos, meaningful tchotkes and postcards, an indoor garden gnome and succulents, that when they look at them, day after day, they feel "home." 

The top of my desk/hutch has become that for me, an oft dust-covered collection of books I loved to read and now like to look at, a bracelet I bought in Rwanda, the carvings I brought back from the Congo, the Goddess of Pristina that an English language student gifted me on the night of my last class in Kosovo.  

Hanging above this collection is a print of Monks in the Sun, a piece I instantly connected to when I saw it on the blog Wu Feng Road, a lovely space where Jeanne-ming illustrates stories of her childhood as the daughter of Quakers living in China. After reading the post about her relationship with a boy in Taiwan who broke her heart when he became a monk, I commented that I felt drawn to the piece, and would love to buy a print.

In one of those instances where I'm thankful for the internet and how it connects rather than separates, Jeanne-ming replied to me in an e-mail.  She had followed my comment to my blog, and had connected to "Are You There God, It's Me, Rebecca," one of my stories of growing up as a Christian, and struggling with what that meant in my current way of life and thinking.  She offered me the print of Monks in the Sun as a gift for sharing my writing.  I was suddenly overwhelmed at how small the world could be, to connect via our blogs.

I've yet to find a proper frame for it, so for now it hangs by a string, which is, perhaps, the best way for the simple life of monks to live in my life.  I was drawn by the idea of living in a state of prayer, contemplation and community, and that in that state, there are so many expressions of individual lives, made clear in this beautiful piece by their unique facial expressions. 

I'm always curious - what do you see?

(Monks in the Sun, by Jeanne-ming)

Believe in the Beauty of Their Dreams - Help Purchase a Sewing Machine for the Women of the Congo

The women of the Action Kivu sewing workshops are graduating! Excited and ready to begin their own businesses, 60 women in eastern Congo, ranging from teenagers to mothers of many children, will graduate this May.

This is momentous for these women, many who chose to attend the program to avoid prostitution on the streets of crowded Bukavu, one of the more horrific options in a place of few choices available to women to survive and feed their families.  Now, with a glimmer of hope and a better future, each one of them will graduate, trained in sewing and designing skills, and armed with a sewing kit.  But it won’t happen without your help!



Each kit costs $175.00 and includes:

•One pedal powered Singer sewing machine ($150.00, and most useful with the lack of electricity in remote village areas)
•One bolt of fabric to begin business ($15)
•One pair of sewing scissors ($5.00)
•One tape measure, plus oil for the machine ($5.00)

Your donation goes directly to the graduates, who have worked so hard towards self-sustainability and helps them gain immeasurable pride as they provide for their families. No donation is too small!

We saw the results with our own eyes on our trip to eastern Congo this year, when we met Nzigira, age 20, and Tantine, age 18, two of the graduates from last year’s sewing program in Mumosho. Parking our truck on the main village road, we wandered down a dirt path, beneath the green of banana trees and lush foliage that surrounded small homes and thatched huts.  Approaching the women’s workspace, we were confused. A pedal-powered Singer sewing machine sat out in the open, situated in the corner of a maze of wooden beams that we soon realized formed the frame of a future house. The only sound was the occasional whirring of the machine’s needle, the chirping of birds, and the chatter of curious kids who’d followed us, pied-piper style, as we’d wound our way into their world.

Nzigira and Tantine have set up shop in one of the corner "rooms" of the construction site. They run their business there, protected by a roof, but otherwise open to the air, sun, rain, a few chickens and one duck who roam freely through.  Nzigira’s uncle is building this house next to his current thatched, round hut, and has offered the space with a roof over their heads for the women to work. However, when the house is finished, the seamstresses will have to find another location to run their sewing shop.

Nzigira and Tantine decided to team up when they met at the sewing workshop. Both hard workers, they recognized in each a partner, and told us that two are better than one. That adage has proven true; they’ve needed no marketing for their work, as word has spread through the local community about their talent.  Women buy fabric and bring it to the makeshift workspace, where they take measurements, press fabric with coal-heated irons, and pedal power their designs into beautiful blouses and skirts, for wedding parties and daily wear.  They live at home with their parents and family, who do not work, and from their shared small business, in which they charge a mere $4.50 for a complicated blouse, they meet their families’ basic needs.

They are ever grateful for the Action Kivu supporters who helped purchase their sewing kits for graduation, and offered a blessing for those who helped them: "May you live as a lake, being replenished and refilled, never dying."

Donate today, and know that you are making a huge difference in one woman’s life. No amount is too small.  We are 100% volunteer in the U.S., which means all of your donation goes toward the purchase of the sewing kits for the May graduates (minus nominal banking fees).

Want to know more about the women? Read the story, hopes and dreams of Ernata, a graduating student, here.

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

(Photos by Cate Haight)

The Alternate Reality of Africa: Amani needs a 4x4

"How's it going with the African?" (Overheard at Groundwork coffee shop, Hollywood.)

The African.  On my bus ride to Groundwork, I was truck by the alternate reality happening in Congo, that I had recently been living in during our Action Kivu trip to see the work Amani has been doing via his Congolese organization, ABFEK. Here in Los Angeles, I ride the relatively clean and efficient Metro bus that arrives on time if not a minute early.  I wear boots, jeans and a light sweater and scarf on a late January day, the air as crisp as a Southern California winter allows, the sky bright blue and cloud-free. Around the world and not so far in my recent past, women in eastern Congo stand on crowded streets, the heavy, humid, hot air filled with dust from the dirt road and exhaust from the cars and trucks that narrowly miss their sandal-clad feet.  They wear long skirts in bright colors and beautifully busy patterns, carry fruit, water or a basket on their heads, waiting for overcrowded buses that have no schedule to run on, squeezing into the seats with neighbors and strangers, thighs and arms brushing as the bus bumps over the pot-holes that fill the width and length of the roads.  When it's muddy during the rainy season, the buses slip-slide through the sludge, getting stuck in the ruts, skidding sideways and putting passengers' lives in jeopardy.  This is their reality, and it's how Amani and his program assistants get around Bukavu, and to and from the surrounding villages.  Without a 4x4, if the roads are rain-washed, plans are canceled and work comes to a grinding halt.

Take a look at one of our many rides, lovingly nicknamed a "Congo massage," through Bukavu, on the road to the hospital, out to the even rougher roads on our way to Mumosho. Amani narrates:




"If you're stuck, you can't do your work."

How are my two realities so disparate?  Many tell me that I've given up convenience by giving up a car, but in reality, almost everything about life in Los Angeles is convenient, by comparison.  We can't fix the roads in Congo, but we can try to help Amani navigate them with more ease, and safety.  He needs a vehicle.  A 4x4, to safely transport him to and from the many projects he oversees via ABFEK.  To visit and check in on the progress of the Bukavu Sewing Workshop to the Mumosho one, to the various schools where he sends children to receive a basic education, to the shared farm or the animal husbandry project.  A used 4x4 can be purchased for around 20 to 30,000 U.S. dollars.  If you know of anyone with connections in Tanzania or Rwanda, or a generous benefactor, please let us know!  Unlike a sports utility vehicle driven on the paved highways of Los Angeles, a 4x4 is required equipment in Congo.

Amani holds on during the drive from Mumosho to Bukavu.

Baby on board - a mom handed me her son while she climbed into the bus.

Women walk the road from Mumosho to Bukavu, to sell their goods in the city.

Read more about Amani's and his work empowering women on the Enough Project blog:
In a Corner of Congo, the Ideas of a Man Named 'Peace' Take Hold

Action Kivu's Visit to Congo: Ernata's Story

Just pretend that we’re not here, said the two American Muzungus (white people).  As the women of the Mumosho Sewing Workshop huddled around the two instructors, we hovered over them with cameras, trying to find the right light in the small, dark room, lit only by two windows. The workshop was at capacity with peddle-powered Singer sewing machines, tables for ironing with a heavy iron filled with hot coals, and over 25 women, a couple who carry quiet, wide-eyed babies.

One woman, Ernata, had a hard time looking away from the camera, her smile wide and friendly and frequent.  A bright red-orange scarf added color to her simple white tee-shirt, and like every other woman in the workshop, a measuring tape hung from her neck.  Amani, who started this sewing program in his home village of Mumosho in 2009, explained the importance of the women sharing their stories with us, so that people in the U.S. and around the world could connect to them, individually, and feel a sense of sharing life and building this community through their support of the sewing workshop.

Ernata volunteered to be the first to talk with us, meeting us behind the building where ABFEK rents the room for the center.  Sitting on a simple wooden stool, ignoring the crows of a rooster and the questioning looks and giggles of a few neighborhood kids, she eyed the camera with confidence, and looked directly at us as she answered the questions Amani translated for her. 

Read Ernata's story at Action Kivu.

Happy 2012: A Bus Ride from Hell

They say 2012 will be the end of the world, as we know it.  I’ve been hopeful it means a change of consciousness, a shift in awareness that we’re all connected on this planet, so we’ll start to act in accordance.  The first day of 2012 was a Sunday, and it felt like it might be the end of my world.  Period. 

Our second day in Bukavu, Congo, our Saturday trip to the village of Mumosho, a mere 25 kilometers away, had been canceled after a rainy night had wreaked havoc on the dirt roads.  Sunday morning, Cate and I woke early to the sound of rain, and wondered if Amani’s plans to celebrate the new year with the kids of Mumosho would be foiled by weather once more. 

Amani met us outside the gate of the Swedish Mission compound, standing next to a compact, four-door taxi that, under the caked-on mud and sprays of dust and grime, appeared to have once been white.  The rain had stopped, but Amani informed us the roads were a mess, and since this car could not make the hilly drive to Mumosho, we would travel to meet another driver on the other side of one of the connecting roads. 

We slowly bumped, skidded and slid our way through the city streets of Bukavu, Amani joking that we could fish in the lake-sized puddles that were the color of Willy Wonka’s river of chocolate.  The ruts in the road are made worse each rainy day as heavy truck, bus and car wheels dig deeper in them.  We watched locals on foot carefully stepping their way through the deep mud, mothers and older siblings holding small children by their arms to keep them upright.  We drove by, spraying mud and puddle juice on them all. One kid caught sight of our white (“muzungu”) faces in the back of the cab, and shocked, cried out “Muzungus in a dirty car!” which is now our Congolese theme song, sung to tune of “Fat guy in a little coat.” 

Shortly after we stopped, our cab unable to drive any further, we saw the station wagon hired to drive us to Mumosho equally mired in the mud.  Amani told us we’d have to walk the length of this road that now looked like a swamp, to find another ride.  He looked at me and asked if I’d be okay, what with my balance issues.  Holding onto our backpacks as a few people were begging for money, we started walking, setting one foot carefully in the sludge before raising the other.  Pausing too long, the mud suctioned your shoe, throwing you off balance.  We crossed what could loosely be defined as a bridge, a few boards built over a deep ravine, slippery and crowded with people.  On the other side, our ride was waiting.  A local bus, these vans cram nearly 20 people into the narrow seats, the leg-room calculated for Congo, where, at just 5 feet tall, Amani is not considered short. 

Putting her bulky camera bag on her lap, Cate scooted close to the window, and I angled my back toward the door, wedging my knees toward Cate.  Soon, the bus filled with passengers, who did not care about my comfort, forcing me to sit straight ahead, my knees jammed in the metal seat in front of me. 

To describe the entire 2 hour trip would be as painful to read as it was to endure.  On a good, dry day, in a rented car of 4x4, the rutted road to Mumosho has been called a “Congo massage.”  After two nights of steady rain, it was an amusement park ride from hell.  We ascended the hilly, narrow road, the driver veering to each side to avoid the largest holes.  Each time the tires lost traction, I gripped Cate’s arm.  To one side of our van was a deep ditch, to the other, a cliff. 

I don’t know if prayers change physical events already set in motion, but staring at a cliff inches away, my panicked mind hoped they did.  I considered saying a Hail Mary, but I’m so WASPy, all I could remember was the Whoopi Goldberg song from “Sister Act.” “Hail Mary.” “Hail sisters, what’s up?”

Still bumping over, in and out of deep holes, the skidding and sliding became the constant, which was great, as it gave me time to consider death.  And the likely lack of control over my death, or this van, for that matter.  My attempts to embrace and accept what I couldn’t control were interrupted by my seatmate, the Grim Reaper’s PR guy, who kept jostling my arm to point out only those sick or dead, being transported by hand-held cots down the wet road to the hospital, or the grave.

My mantra was that the driver didn’t want to die either, right?  At that moment, he turned a bend and spun a full 90 degrees, the van nose at the edge of the cliff.  While I stopped breathing, about five kids with shovels full of dry-ish dirt from the hillside appeared, slip-sliding toward us to dump the red earth under our wheels, giving us the traction to right the van.  As it slowly turned road-wise again and the back wheels spun, threatening another cliff-view, the men in the van cheered “Congo! Congo!” and Cate joined them with a raised fist, the hand I wasn’t gripping. 

That bend being the worst of the ride, we simply spun around and got stuck in a village, men pushing on all sides so we wouldn’t plow into the roadside shops or that old man walking with his cane. 

We arrived in Mumosho, unable to feel our feet or hands, numb from the long ride and a claw-like grip on the seat ahead of us.  The rest of our time, we shelled out the money for a 4x4 and driver, vowing never to do that again, and not to tell our worried mothers until safely on paved ground.  

Happy 2012 to Congo. May your year be filled with hope, change, and asphalt.